Jim McCuag oral history transcript

1075.pdf
[0.06 MB]
Link will provide options to open or save document.

File Format:

Adobe Reader

Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Jim McCuag
Date of Interview: January 17, 2007
Location of Interview: NCTC
Interviewer: John Cornely
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 0 worked 30+ for the Canadian Wildlife Service
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: Executive Director, CWS, Ottawa, Canada; Director of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan -- Canada
Most Important Projects: NAWMP and various Joint Ventures
Colleagues and Mentors: Jim Patterson, Lee Munn, Harvey Nelson, Ramón Sarasan, Kieth MacElrony, Sandy McCauley, Gordon Kurr, Danielle Tebo (Bridget), Tom McMillan (Minister of Environment, Canada), Gary Meyers
Most Important Issues: NAWMP, NAWCA, Joint Ventures
Brief Summary of Interview: Early history of NAWMP in Canada; Canadian processes of establishing support, funding, programs, projects, and plans in order to implement NAWMP; relationships between federal government (Canadian Wildlife Service) and provincial governments; various partners in Joint Ventures including Ducks Unlimited Canada, various Canadian provinces, US interests (governmental, NGOs, etcetera) private citizens; skepticism that US would really fund projects and programs happening in Canada; working to get NAWMP and NAWCA approved in the US; finding, funding, and organization position of Joint Venture Coordinators in Canada; Prairie Habitat Joint Venture, Eastern Habitat Joint Venture, Pacific Coast Joint Venture; ‘results bases management’; First Step Projects, Second Step Projects; Quill Lakes Project – Saskatchewan, Buffalo Lake Moraine Project – Alberta, Grove Pine Project – Prince Edward Island, Grand Lake Meadows Project – New Brunswick; lessons learned from the NAWMP – role of federal employees, common objectives, partnerships; plan for opportunities ahead of time.
1
NAWMP January 17, 2007
Tape #4, Side A
John Cornely -- Good morning, this is John Cornely. I’m here with Jim McCuag, retired from the Canadian Wildlife Service, and at one time the counterpart to our Executive Director in the US Office. He was the Executive Director in the Canadian Office, in Ottawa. Jim, I’d like to start out with … take you back to when you first became the Executive Director in Canada and what kind of tasks were you given? What kind of objectives were laid out to you in the early days in your new job there?
Jim McCaug -- Well, when I was … first came to the Canadian Wildlife Service I was assisting Lee Munn, who was following Jim Patterson in the position of Director of the North American Plan. And when I became the Director, the tasks at that time were: getting the Plan up and running; getting it functional; getting the systems designed for annual cycles for finances, for how a Joint Venture would function; the relationships between Ottawa and the Joint Ventures. So that’s one area of work that I was responsible for and needed to take action in very early. And the second area was in working with the United States and Canada … between the two countries, and establishing, you know, how we were going to make that relationship continue to grow and function. It had been based on a huge amount of good will, and a huge concern for the joint resources that we had. But to translate that from the concern for the waterfowl, the concern for the habitat, into processes and into ways of actually bringing that concern to bear on the ground and making a difference there. So those were the two areas where I first had to work.
John Cornely -- You’ve been involved with us in these historical sessions before, and one of the things that struck those of us from the US that weren’t familiar with it is things were very different in Canada, both your … the way you had to go about internally establishing support, and putting together your plans and your actions. But you had different hurdles to encounter. We were fascinated, quite frankly, because it was very different than what we went through. And I’d like you to talk about … and you’ve been listening to our Joint Venture Coordinators, and our Plan Office folks, over the last
2
couple of sessions, and I’d like you to give us a flavor for some of the differences. As you know, we invited a number of other Canadians to the session and unfortunately they were not able to make it. And we’re going to try and get together with them somehow in the future and capture their thoughts. But as the Canadian representative for the whole crew, give us a flavor of some of the issues and problems, and how you solved them in Canada, to get things going.
Jim McCaug -- Okay, I think the best way to do that is to divide it into three parts. The first part is within the federal government of Canada. The second part is within the Canadian Wildlife Service. And the third part is federal / provincial relations. And I think it really gets explained when you understand those. First of all, within the federal government of Canada, Canada needed to sign officially the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. We had … we needed to legally involve our Cabinet in the negations of the North American Plan and the signing of the Plan. So that we had to do what we call ‘Cabinet Document’, which is a very formal document, which is submitted to Cabinet on behalf of a Minister. A Minister, in this case the Environment Minister, takes the Cabinet Document to Cabinet, and it seeks approval for certain actions, and sometimes seeks money. And so, we had been to Cabinet with approval to negotiate the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And, when it had been negotiated, we took the terms and text to Cabinet to seek authority to sign it. So, when Tom McMillan, Minister of Environment, signed the North American Plan, in the famous picture that we see, he had full Cabinet authority to do so. So, unlike in the United States, where because of it being an agreement you didn’t end up having to go to Congress, you didn’t need Senate approval -- it wasn’t a treaty, we required to go through the Cabinet process. And so, that was the easy part in the federal level. The hard part came immediately afterwards and that was money. And the Canadian federal government was required to ante up its part. And there was no way in the world that either Canadian Wildlife Service or Environment Canada was able to pony up that kind of dollars. And so, we required to go back to Cabinet. And that was one of my very first jobs -- is to design the Cabinet Document that went to seek the finances and the funding. And one of the very strong points that we had was the huge support from the United States. And, not only support in
3
terms of commitment to the resource, but also, a commitment on the US side to provide funding to projects and work in Canada. And so, make a long story short, we succeeded in Cabinet, in getting that financed. It was not easy. It involved all kinds of Briefing Notes. And it was even … right up ‘till the end, a Briefing Note coming from our Washington Embassy on the day we went to Cabinet, and that was the same day that President Bush senior spoke to everybody and supported the Plan. And we were able to use that to get it through Cabinet. It’s a wonderful story, you know, [to] tell at another time. The second area that we had a difference in, and we had to work within, was how the relationships between Canadian Wildlife Service headquarters worked with Canadian Wildlife Service Regions. We’ve heard a lot of that interplay here, in the United States. And, there was some similarities there. Headquarters – Ottawa -- was not well regarded by many of the Regions. The Regions looked at Ottawa a little bit as the problem, the enemy. You know, just go away and let us do our thing. But, so the trust wasn’t really strong there. And so, one of my first jobs as the North American Plan Coordinator, knowing that we needed to do this in the Regions, was to try to build the trust and respect with our Regional Offices. And that required a lot of time on my part, and going out to the various Regional Offices, working together. And essentially, doing what I said I would do. And doing what the Plan required us to do. And doing the things that only Ottawa could do, like going to get the money, and that kind of a thing. And so, as time proceeded with this North American Plan, there was still the same Regional concerns as to what this meant to everybody, and is this going to take away from our projects? Who’s going to do it? How’s it going to get done? And so, by performing our functions in Ottawa in a way that respected the Regions, worked with the Regions, understood clearly that the Regional Offices were where it’s going to happen, and building a relationship, that’s the way that it worked out. And it worked very well. And one advantage we had over the way it happened in the United States is that our Regional Directors got directly involved with the Joint Ventures themselves. In fact, they Chaired the Joint Venture and got really stuck into the specifics. And they were also scientists and waterfowl people, and that really helped an awful lot.
4
John Cornely -- All right, Jim, what … and your third point again was between the Canadian Wildlife Service and the provinces?
Jim McCaug -- Yes, that’s the third area where trust and respect had to be developed. Similar to the situation in the United States, there had been a lot of rancor over the years, developed over regulations -- and hunting regulations in particular -- and the different roles. It’s always been a jurisdictional question, in Canada, as to who’s responsible for what kind of wildlife, and in what sorts of situations. And there are jokes about it. But the end result is that there was a federal role -- it was very clear in terms of migratory birds. And there was a regulation problem. And … but, that rancor existed. And when the North American Plan came along, we had to overcome that. And very similar to the situation in the United States, the Plan made a wonderful vehicle for that to happen. Because it was designed with partnerships in mind. It was designed to be done in a situation where no one was in charge. So we -- the feds -- were not in charge of this thing and telling the provinces what to do. The jurisdiction of the provinces wasn’t being impinged -- it was being used. And the jurisdiction of the feds, and the research that we were able to contribute, and the funds, and the coordination, was being used -- it wasn’t being imposed. And so, we were able to work, and develop that trust, and respect. And it really came down to the point where I, as the Director, gained the trust of the provinces -- to speak for them. And they ceased to worry about me as a ‘fed’. And they saw me more as the role, like Harvey, as the Plan representative for Canada. And so, when I would go down to the United States, to represent Canada before the NAWMP [or NAWCA?] Committee, I had their full support. And when I came back and told them what had happened, they were fully supportive. And so, it took a while to achieve that kind of a thing, but by the time I left the position, I think that it was working in a very smooth fashion. And so, those are some of the differences -- and some of the similarities -- between Canada and the US.
John Cornely -- Right. I’d like to follow up … you and I have discussed this before, and I’d like to follow up on that. What I found, you know I was about ten years into my career when I moved into my role as a Migratory Bird Coordinator -- a Regional
5
Coordinator, and this was right when … the Plan had been signed two years earlier. And it was the beginning of the Joint Ventures. And, in our country, the beginning of our private lands, or our partners for fish & wildlife. And I found out kind … you know … unexpectedly, and probably unintentionally, that those two programs, coming online about that time, changed the whole relationship of my job with the states, and probably with the provinces in some ways. Because we became much more partners than adversaries. And it sounds like something very similar like that as a result of Plan activities happened in Canada between the federal government and the provincial folks.
Jim McCaug -- Yes. That’s very much the case. And I guess that’s best exemplified through the many years the Canadian Wildlife Service and the provinces were trying to deal with waterfowl and wildlife issues and habitat. It became very painfully obvious that none of us were ever going to have the resources to buy anywhere close the amount of land, or to even protect, in any way, the amount of land that it was going to take to deal with the waterfowl population issues. It was very clear that the waterfowl populations were in trouble, and we all were writing, very clearly, the conclusion that it was a habitat problem. And it was a habitat problem, as has been said in the discussion, throughout the entire system. It wasn’t just a breeding ground problem. It was a migratory problem and a wintering problem. And that we had to look at it completely, as a system. But at the same time as looking at it as a system, we had to get the people who actually owned the land involved in the program. And so, in a way, that changed the focus away from who’s going to get it, and who’s going to get the money, and who’s going to control it, and who’s going to manage it. And so you avoided all that kind of issue and problem. And you started focusing on how can we, together, work with land owners. And how can we get people to contribute to this as partners -- as partners at all levels. And now we’re not talking about partners in the sense of the Canadian Wildlife Service as a partner, but we’re talking about ‘Joe Farmer’ as a partner in the program. And, in a way, our objective took us away from the kinds of areas that had caused clashes in the past, and moved us into a joint area, where we were looking at, how are we, together, going to be able to bring our resources, and bring our expertise, and bring our jurisdictions, together.
6
John Cornely -- Talk a little bit more about … we’ve talked about the NAWCA [should be NAWMP?] act and the fact that it specifies a certain amount of money going across borders, not just to Canada, but also to Mexico. A very unique, as you pointed out, in a panel previously, a very unique legislation. We now have another one, the Neo-Tropical Migratory Bird Act, that facilitates some of that too. And I think those are the only, you know, very unique in sending funds across the border to a partner that shares in an international resource. I understand that there, and I’m sure it was in both countries, but in Canada, that they didn’t think that -- the folks in both the federal government and the provinces, didn’t believe that would ever happen, that that was an insurmountable obstacle. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jim McCaug -- Yeah. We’d been through many ideas, many flashes in the pan, new program and everything like this. And they all came a cropper on money. The money just didn’t come. It wasn’t there. The timing wasn’t right. And at the beginning, people thought the North American Waterfowl Management Plan was just a little bit of more grandiose flash in the pan, and that the money never would come. In Canada, at one point, it was called by one of my assistant deputy ministers as the ‘No Wampum Plan.’ The ‘No Wampum’ -- no money. And … but the Plan Committee, and those who had designed it, were well aware of the failures in the past. And they were definitely resolved to change that. And what it was, was a real politicization, when you come right down to it, of the waterfowl expertise. People in the waterfowl business who wanted to accomplish something, there turned out to be people such as Jim Patterson, and Harvey, and many other people that we worked together with in Washington and Ottawa, that not only had the care for the resource, but they also had political smarts on how to go - in our case to Cabinet, and how to get funding, and how to go into Washington, and to get these things to happen. Before that was happening, we were beg, borrowing, and stealing money from all kinds of places. And that was one of the political actions we took, was to getting these Flagship Projects and the First Step Projects up and running. Because we were then able, when it came time to go to Parliament, and time to go to Congress, able to prove and say “see, it works.” “Look, it … this isn’t just an idea. This is real. This is
7
actually happening. And just imagine, if we can make it happen by beg, borrowing, and stealing, what’s going to happen if we can actually provide the funding.” Now the funding aspect is a very important part, from the Canadian perspective, because the Plan had been sold in Canada as being a 75 / 25 ratio; that 75 percent of the money to be spent in Canada was going to come from the United States, and 25 had to be coming from Canada. And while there was great belief in that, and everybody on both sides of the border had committed and signed off on that, we Canadians jumped in on First Step Projects, and when you look at the statistics, almost 60 percent of the funding for First Step Projects came from Canadian sources, and 40 percent came from US sources. But that 40 percent that came from US sources was money flying across the border that people never, ever thought would happen. And when that actually happened, and some actual money started hitting the ground, even though it was closer to 50 / 50 or 60 / 40, that made a big difference in the Canadian situation. All of a sudden, this wasn’t a flash in the pan. This had some potential. And then we started having to think, okay, how are we going to organize ourselves, in this country, to manage this money that looks like it’s coming from the United States. And that’s one of the things that I got very much involved in. Originally there was only two Joint Ventures in Canada, the Prairie Habitat and the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture. And as it had always been identified through the process of an 80 / 20 prospect. That 80 percent of the resources were to go to the Prairies cause that’s were so much of the problem was, and 20 percent would go to Eastern Canada to deal with the issues that were there. And then when Art Martel and I, and Marv Plenert and others in the United States, began developing the Pacific Coast Joint Venture, it was very important for us in Canada, we really did need to be coast-to-coast. It became a real hard jaunt to try and persuade, particularly the Prairie Provinces, that I wanted to lower their number. I needed to get a third number, 80 / 20 had to turn into 77 / 16 / 7. And you basically needed to have it that way, seven percent for the Pacific Coast. And that meant the number for the Prairies was going down. And we had to convince them, and we succeeded, that even though that number went down, the dollars -- because of that -- were going to go way up. And we were proved right, in the long run. So, then comes the story of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. And there’s several parts of that. I talked a little bit about that yesterday. But from a Canadian
8
perspective we had to decide how to respond to this Act when it was being developed. And Jim Patterson came to Washington, and he wanted, and he was being asked, to testify before a Senate Committee. Well, he can’t do that. A Canadian federal public employee is not allowed to go under oath to a foreign power. And it is an interesting question, but we have to think of our sovereignty as a nation. And that actually flavored a lot of this. So what happened was that the Senate Committee adjourned, and then just sat and listened to Jim Patterson, and talked to him in an adjourned state. The Embassy wasn’t too pleased with that either, but that’s the way it went. And so, Canada was able to support the Act, and to talk about how important it was, and to bring the Canadian perspective to it. And so that was part of the early aspect. But then, when the money started to flow, we had to decide how are we going to deal with this. And, as you know, the United States went on a process to identify -- a competitive process, to have projects submitted, and then evaluated, and then ranked. And then the Committee was going to choose which projects were to get funding, whatever was available. Well, we come back to the sovereignty question. Canada was not in a position of allowing decisions of what was to happen to land and things in Canada [to] be taken in Washington. And so we approached it from the point of view of saying, and finding out from Washington, sort of, okay, how much money are we talking about. Give us a number. And then we took our 77 / 16 / 7, and told the Joint Ventures - plan for this much money. And we want plans done, thoroughly approved at the Joint Venture level, and then approved collectively at the Canadian level, before we send them to Washington. And then that became my job -- to take them to Washington. And in my back pocket I always had two things: one – I knew what I’d do if there was less money available than we had planned for -- and that happened at the very first meeting, and so we had to cut a project. But in other cases, we were ready with other projects in our back pocket that would … if there was more money available. And so we were always sort of first up on the agenda at the NAWCA, and our projects went and they usually went through fairly quickly and fairly easily. Very much as advertised. And it became a very good system. And then we would sit back and watch the United States process going on. And always in the middle of that discussion, somebody would say ‘why don’t we do it like the Canadians? Why are we having all these arguments?’ [General laughter.] It was quite interesting, but I recognized, and we
9
recognized, that it couldn’t be done that way in the United States. And … but it’s the way we had to do it in Canada. And I’m particularly pleased with our ability to be able to adapt ourselves to the situation, and to be able to take very concerted action in that fashion.
John Cornely -- Earlier today we talked with some or our Joint Venture Coordinators from the US and how they were hired. We talked to Harvey Nelson about, you know, his recollections of how they identified and went after Joint Venture Coordinators. And then the Joint Venture Coordinators talked about how they got their Joint Ventures up and running. And in the absence of some of those folks from Canada here, I would like you to talk a little bit about what you know about how the original two, and then three, the third, Joint Venture, how you went about looking for Coordinators. And little bit about getting the Prairie Habitat, the Eastern Habitat, and the Pacific Coast Joint Ventures up and running.
Jim McCaug -- Okay. Well, as I said at the beginning, we only had the two -- we had the Prairie Habitat and we had the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture. And actually, the Joint Ventures themselves had been sort of functional, in an informal sense, during the designing of the Plan and the approval of the Plan. And so, there’d been a lot of liaison and coordination. Jim Patterson was very good at that kind of thing. He made sure that none of this was going to be a surprise to the provinces and the other partners. And that we were all set up to do this kind of a thing. So, the Joint Venture, when it first formally met, it really wasn’t it first formal meeting. It had been working together for quite some time. And during that process, it was understood that we needed a Joint Venture Coordinator. And in the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture it just became clear that Sandy McCauley was just the person to do that. And he came out of DU -- DU Canada. And his background experience, and his personality … I mean, his people skills were exemplary -- but he also knew what he was talking about. And he was also extremely good at making things happen. And so he was appointed -- not so much hired, but just appointed -- as the first Prairie Habitat Joint Venture Coordinator. And he pulled that act together. In the east, they had a slower start. Eastern Habitat Joint Venture hadn’t been
10
really thought of. It was sort of a little add-on to the Plan. And it was necessary in Canada to involve everybody. [If] it would have been a strictly a prairie project, it would be very difficult to justify a federal presence in it. And … but, by having all the eastern provinces, that was much better. And so it was a little further behind. And so their meeting together is a little more complicated. You’ve got five or six provinces, all trying to meet together, ranging from Ontario to Newfoundland. And so many different little issues and different problems that needed to be involved with each of those. But they … come together they did. And eventually Ramón Sarasan started as the Joint Venture Coordinator, out of Québec. And that was … and he came out of the government of Québec. And he did an excellent job at the very beginning. And then he just … for health reasons, and for career reasons, just wasn’t able to continue it. And Keith Macelrony from Ducks Unlimited was appointed. And he just did it brilliantly for many years. And he exhibited all the skills that the earlier panel talked about -- the people skills, the detailed knowledge, the … in a way it’s a ‘good old boy’ stuff that, you know, he was just so easy to get along with, and just managed to cajole everybody, and so that they actually did what he wanted them to do - but thought it was their idea. And I think the definition, to some degree, of what a Coordinator is. And so that’s how our Coordinators sort of came about.
John Cornely -- I have some recollections too, that the structure kind of organizational structure of the Joint Ventures in Canada was a little different. Who did Sandy actually work for? Was he still working for DU? Who was he working for? And the same with Ramón and with Keith?
Jim McCaug -- They reported to the Chair of the Joint Venture. They worked for the Joint Venture. Now in each case - and always, the Chair of the Joint Venture is a fed. Canadian Wildlife Service. Gordon Kurr. And then, in the East, it rotated around through some of the provincial Directors that we had at different times. But that basically meant that he was paid by CWS, and he reported to a CWS person. The office was in CWS. And that was one of the federal contributions to the Joint Venture -- was the paying, and the coordinating of the paying, and the office, and so on, and travel and so
11
on, for the Coordinator. And so they lived within CWS. But -- they reported to the Director of CWS. Sometimes, not even in the Region where they lived. But they reported to them as the Chair of the Joint Venture, not as the Director of the Canadian Wildlife Service. And so, as the Chair of the Joint Venture, the Chair took direction from the Committee, and helped coordinate that Committee. And so he was truly a JV employee.
John Cornely -- Okay. Okay. And so the … they weren’t, per se, employees of the Canadian Wildlife Service, even though they were supervised, in a way ….
Jim McCaug -- Yeah. I’m not 100 percent sure …
John Cornely -- Okay.
Jim McCaug -- … of the technicalities of it,
John Cornely -- Okay. Okay.
Jim McCaug -- … but, no, to all intents and purposes, they were the Joint Venture … they were employees of the Joint Venture.
John Cornely -- Okay.
Jim McCaug -- How they actually got their checks picked up …
John Cornely -- Sure.
Jim McCaug -- … is a different matter.
John Cornely -- Right.
12
Jim McCaug -- But you know so technically they may have been federal public servants getting a yellow check …
John Cornely -- Okay.
Jim McCaug -- … like we all got, but that was … they never behaved that way and they were never expected to act that way. Their master was the JV.
John Cornely -- Okay. They were JV employees for all intents …
Jim McCaug -- Absolutely.
John Cornely -- … and purposes. Another … we’ve talked about … in the US, we’ve talked about this urgency to get projects done, on the ground, and move dirt, and all that kind of stuff. And we’re … there’s been some comments, some frustrations, about the lack of assessment of effectiveness of some of those actions. That in our haste to show that we were really doing something, that, you know, maybe we didn’t put as much effort into demonstrating that what we were doing was the right thing. And that it was effective, at least. You know, my familiarity’s somewhat with the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture. It was very different from the beginning. There was a lot of thought, it seems like, put into assessment. And it was kind of built in as part of the Joint Venture. Can you talk about that some?
Jim McCaug -- There was, from the beginning, a concern for what in management circles is called ‘results based management.’ And that is, you don’t manage by activities, and you don’t just report on activities -- how much is spent, how many trips you took, how many acres you protected, or anything like that -- but a look toward the results. The results being protected habitat, in a form. But also, are the waterfowl responding, are you ready when the rains come, and that sort of thing. A lot of this was driven out of our Research Area, both within the Canadian Wildlife Service, particularly out of our Saskatchewan Research Area, and Ducks Unlimited, who were really at that … Ducks
13
Unlimited Canada, who were really at that time getting into the research side of the operation. And, as you know, they now have this big, joint, DU Research Group. That was just getting started. And so, with that kind of background, there was focus on that. Now, I have to say, that the tracking of all of these things was a big headache for my office. And Danielle Tebo, later Danielle Bridget, was responsible for this, and it was a production number, trying to … apples and oranges … problems … what to report, what not; how to avoid double counting. It was a production number. But, she preserved, and saw it through with her team. That was a team that consisted of JV Coordinators and provincial representatives, as well as statisticians, and so on. And to the point where, we’re certainly able to report on the activities, and certainly know what the money is, and where it went, and the accountability side, as Bob put it yesterday. The results side is still, as it is here in the United States, a bit of a difficulty. It always is when you’re dealing in results based management. It’s not an easy area to deal with, because the measures of results, and the cause and effect, and the external factors. So in the area we’re talking about, the measure of the results can be done in population. But the cause and effect to say that, because we did this - this is the result, that’s a very hard line to follow. And then, not only is that cause and effect hard to follow, but there’s external factors. And the external factor that comes into play with us is the continuing loss of other wetlands that we’re not really involved in. And, as I said to someone yesterday, we can’t afford to find out that information. In order to have all that information it would be an enormous program costing just about as much as the North American Plan cost now, just to have the data and the information. So, my inclination has always been to trust the experts. To trust the people who know the resource. And, that they know what they’re doing. And, they’re not trying to spend money just for no purpose. And, as much as I’d like to have good statistics and knowledge of the results, when I’m told, by the people who know, that this is working, we’re making a difference – ‘boy, if we weren’t here, can you imagine what would be happening, if we hadn’t done what we had done’ -- that’s good enough for me.
John Cornely -- Okay. The First Step Projects in Canada served some of the same purpose as what we called Flagship Projects in the US. In your recollection, how did
14
Canada go about deciding where those projects would be? And tell us a little bit about projects like Quill Lakes and any other that come to mind.
Jim McCaug -- Okay. The provinces, and in the context of the Joint Venture, had been thinking about this question for a while. Said okay, if this is happening, where are some of our priorities? Where should we be acting? Where are we acting that we can augment? What could, you know, where are some of our priority areas that will immediately: A -- show results; and B -- address the goals of the plan. And in the prairies, it was very clear from the beginning, that we needed to have a project in Alberta and a project in Saskatchewan. And the biggest one had to be the Saskatchewan one. That’s where the attention was, and that’s where Quill Lakes came in. And the Quill Lakes Project was an enormous project. For us, in Canada, it was a very, very large effort. In Alberta it was the Buffalo Lake Moraine Project. And these two became our First Step Projects in the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture. And they had been projects that were thought through, ready to run. In a way, they were in a back pocket. But one of the reasons they were in the back pocket was because they were anticipating that, you know, if this is going to come down, we’d better be ready to go. In the eastern provinces, because you had sort of five provinces involved, five or six provinces involved, how are you going to divvy it up? And essentially, each province brought to the table a project that it had ready, at the kind of scale that the money was anticipated to be. And sometimes that depended - as to whether that was accepted as a First Step Project - on whether the province was willing to put up their share of the money and they could find other matches within the province and so on. So for example, we had no First Step Project in Newfoundland. But we did have one in Prince Edward Island, our smallest province. And so -- that was Grove Pine. Anyway, we had another big project -- New Brunswick had the Grand Lake Meadows, which was a huge and important project. Anyway, similar situation -- anticipation, already got some knowledge and action, and back pockets.
15
John Cornely -- And then the results … demonstrated results in those projects were used to further prove that this is not a flash in the pan, and this is working, and let’s keep right on, with the throttle open, and get on down the road.
Jim McCaug -- We produced very quickly, after sort of one year with these projects, a report on First Step. It had to be an interim report, because, as you know, no project actually takes a year. Especially a [indecipherable] have the results, but we had to get that out. And one of the reasons we wanted to get that out, was to report back to all of our partners, particularly the many, many US partners and states that had contributed funds to the First Step Project, through Gary Meyers’ work and other peoples work. They had put money in -- now 20,000 here, you know, 100,000 there, 60 here. Different amounts. but they deserved to hear what had happened to their money right away. And so we produced this First Step Report. And then there was another round of projects we called the Second Step Projects, that worked in very much the same way. They came a year after the first ones. And again it was Gary Meyers’ doing, and all that kind of thing. And we rushed to press with a Second Step Report, much more comprehensive, that also reported on some of the continuation of the First Steps into the Second Step Projects. And again, that was out in time for the lobbying effort, and effort in Congress, in order to have the proof on the table that Canada had its bonifides; that the 50% clause in the act was going to be honored; and that the US was getting what it had paid for in the First Step Projects; and was getting the feedback that it needed to understand that that money was good money, and that you could put more good money in that direction. And so, we spent a lot of effort making sure that that feedback got into the system.
John Cornely -- You’ve more recently been doing some consulting in other countries, and so on. And that’s a way to set up a question here, but not really … the important point, in the time we have left here I’d like you to talk about lessons learned. What you’ve learned as your involvement in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And if someone from China, or someone came to you with a natural resource problem, what sorts of things have you learned from this Plan, this Joint Venture process, that you think,
16
you know, really work, and that you can apply to conservation and natural resources in other places
Jim McCaug – We’re asked that question a lot, in this business -- us old timers. Because it has been such a success. And my answer to that in the first place is people. It’s people that makes this work. And it’s people that will make anything along these lines, or to achieve anything. It’s not the thing. It’s not the money. It’s not the politics. It’s the people in it. And what is it about the people? What it is about the people is a common objective. Something outside themselves. This isn’t a personal objective, you know, I want a get a promotion. I want to get money. I want power. No. None of that. It’s -- I care about the resource. In this case, I care about waterfowl. I care about the land. I care about the land owners. I really want to make a difference. And that kind of shared objective, when it’s set out in front of everybody, takes their eyes off of their personal issues, and their personal problems, their jurisdictional issues, their internal service problems, whatever they are, and it focuses on that. And, as I mentioned at … in a meeting that wasn’t recorded yesterday, there’s a wonderful book called Getting To Yes. And it talks about just that. Don’t talk about what you need, and what I need, talk about what we need. And it’s the objectives that are outside. And so, I think that that’s one of the things that I learned, through the North American Plan, and that I’ve tried to apply in all of the other things that I’ve done. A corollary of that is -- one of the things is partnerships. And, the way that I always used to put partnerships was that everybody comes to the table and nobody is in charge. And that is what makes people say ‘oh, well, this can’t possibly work, if nobody’s in charge of it.’ Well, that’s wrong. It does work. And the fact that nobody’s in charge of it, nobody takes charge, is key to this North American Plan functioning. I was the Canadian Director for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in CWS, and I became the Canadian voice for the Plan in the United States, and sort of the front person. And that’s a natural role for a fed to play. But, essentially, that role was one that I was given by the partners. They said ‘yeah, you do that, that’s an appropriate role for you, you do that, you have our trust,’ and so on. If I’d have gone in there and said ‘we’re the feds, that’s what we’re going to do, that’s our job,’ and told people what to do -- never would have happened. Never would have
17
happened. So those are some of the key hallmarks. And, I’ll tell ya, it’s difficult to get that through to people until they experience it. Because people are really reluctant to give up authority. Really reluctant to give up control. And, even today, you can see, even within the Canadian Wildlife Service, you know, every once in a while something happens and somebody’s trying to exert control, even into the area of the North American Plan. And they try to exert some kind of control. And it’s a disaster. It runs against what were all standing for. But, it’s not something that you can defeat forever. And, we’ve done very well in the Plan.
John Cornely -- Yeah. One last question. It’s come up before, and it’s … it doesn’t have to do with the people. It doesn’t have to do … it does have to do somewhat with the objectives, but … strong feeling in the US that, in the 80s, if waterfowl populations hadn’t have been extremely low, that there would have more difficulty at getting a Plan signed, and getting all of this stuff implemented, and in going … that maybe something would have happened, but maybe it would have been more along the lines of the plans that we had in the past. What do you think about that? What role did kind of the crisis of the resource play in kind of setting the stage for getting some of this stuff done?
Jim McCaug -- If there’s one thing I’ve learned, in all of my career, is that timing is everything. And timing, and opportunity, knock, and you’ve got to be ready. And so, the key to being able to take advantage of opportunity is to plan for it. And I think that those who began the planning of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in the early 80s, knew what had to happen -- not because there was a crisis, but because it was the right thing to do. But the right thing and 25 cents won’t buy coffee. It’s the kind of crisis that you need to push it over the top -- to make it happen. And when that came, they were ready. They knew what they wanted to do. Jim Patterson, and Harvey, and all the rest like that, they knew what needed to be done; they knew how they would go about doing it. And when the opportunity came, and the crisis hit, they didn’t have to say ‘how can we take advantage of this crisis?’
John Cornely -- They were ready.
18
Jim McCaug – They were ready. And, everything is timing. And if that hadn’t of been the crisis, we maybe just had to wait until there was a crisis. And I think that that’s one of the things I’ve learned in a long time. That we had the opportunity to make ecological land gifts tax deductible in Canada. And Finance Canada said ‘no, forget it, never happen.’ Well, when Finance says nothing … it’ll never happen, it takes three years to defeat them. You go out over and around and above. And we did. And, so, timing is everything.
John Cornely -- I think we’ve accomplished our objective for this interview, Jim. [Giggles] And, as always, it’s been a pleasure. And thank you very much for your time.
Jim McCaug -- Thank you. Glad to do it.
A Word From Your Transcriptionist: If a word appears [indecipherable] or with a “?” – I could not hear or I’m not sure I heard it right. Words or partial words appearing in [ ] are ones that I put in to clarify the thought. Proper names that I could not verify the spelling of show up in red text.
19

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

Oral History Cover Sheet
Name: Jim McCuag
Date of Interview: January 17, 2007
Location of Interview: NCTC
Interviewer: John Cornely
Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 0 worked 30+ for the Canadian Wildlife Service
Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: Executive Director, CWS, Ottawa, Canada; Director of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan -- Canada
Most Important Projects: NAWMP and various Joint Ventures
Colleagues and Mentors: Jim Patterson, Lee Munn, Harvey Nelson, Ramón Sarasan, Kieth MacElrony, Sandy McCauley, Gordon Kurr, Danielle Tebo (Bridget), Tom McMillan (Minister of Environment, Canada), Gary Meyers
Most Important Issues: NAWMP, NAWCA, Joint Ventures
Brief Summary of Interview: Early history of NAWMP in Canada; Canadian processes of establishing support, funding, programs, projects, and plans in order to implement NAWMP; relationships between federal government (Canadian Wildlife Service) and provincial governments; various partners in Joint Ventures including Ducks Unlimited Canada, various Canadian provinces, US interests (governmental, NGOs, etcetera) private citizens; skepticism that US would really fund projects and programs happening in Canada; working to get NAWMP and NAWCA approved in the US; finding, funding, and organization position of Joint Venture Coordinators in Canada; Prairie Habitat Joint Venture, Eastern Habitat Joint Venture, Pacific Coast Joint Venture; ‘results bases management’; First Step Projects, Second Step Projects; Quill Lakes Project – Saskatchewan, Buffalo Lake Moraine Project – Alberta, Grove Pine Project – Prince Edward Island, Grand Lake Meadows Project – New Brunswick; lessons learned from the NAWMP – role of federal employees, common objectives, partnerships; plan for opportunities ahead of time.
1
NAWMP January 17, 2007
Tape #4, Side A
John Cornely -- Good morning, this is John Cornely. I’m here with Jim McCuag, retired from the Canadian Wildlife Service, and at one time the counterpart to our Executive Director in the US Office. He was the Executive Director in the Canadian Office, in Ottawa. Jim, I’d like to start out with … take you back to when you first became the Executive Director in Canada and what kind of tasks were you given? What kind of objectives were laid out to you in the early days in your new job there?
Jim McCaug -- Well, when I was … first came to the Canadian Wildlife Service I was assisting Lee Munn, who was following Jim Patterson in the position of Director of the North American Plan. And when I became the Director, the tasks at that time were: getting the Plan up and running; getting it functional; getting the systems designed for annual cycles for finances, for how a Joint Venture would function; the relationships between Ottawa and the Joint Ventures. So that’s one area of work that I was responsible for and needed to take action in very early. And the second area was in working with the United States and Canada … between the two countries, and establishing, you know, how we were going to make that relationship continue to grow and function. It had been based on a huge amount of good will, and a huge concern for the joint resources that we had. But to translate that from the concern for the waterfowl, the concern for the habitat, into processes and into ways of actually bringing that concern to bear on the ground and making a difference there. So those were the two areas where I first had to work.
John Cornely -- You’ve been involved with us in these historical sessions before, and one of the things that struck those of us from the US that weren’t familiar with it is things were very different in Canada, both your … the way you had to go about internally establishing support, and putting together your plans and your actions. But you had different hurdles to encounter. We were fascinated, quite frankly, because it was very different than what we went through. And I’d like you to talk about … and you’ve been listening to our Joint Venture Coordinators, and our Plan Office folks, over the last
2
couple of sessions, and I’d like you to give us a flavor for some of the differences. As you know, we invited a number of other Canadians to the session and unfortunately they were not able to make it. And we’re going to try and get together with them somehow in the future and capture their thoughts. But as the Canadian representative for the whole crew, give us a flavor of some of the issues and problems, and how you solved them in Canada, to get things going.
Jim McCaug -- Okay, I think the best way to do that is to divide it into three parts. The first part is within the federal government of Canada. The second part is within the Canadian Wildlife Service. And the third part is federal / provincial relations. And I think it really gets explained when you understand those. First of all, within the federal government of Canada, Canada needed to sign officially the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. We had … we needed to legally involve our Cabinet in the negations of the North American Plan and the signing of the Plan. So that we had to do what we call ‘Cabinet Document’, which is a very formal document, which is submitted to Cabinet on behalf of a Minister. A Minister, in this case the Environment Minister, takes the Cabinet Document to Cabinet, and it seeks approval for certain actions, and sometimes seeks money. And so, we had been to Cabinet with approval to negotiate the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And, when it had been negotiated, we took the terms and text to Cabinet to seek authority to sign it. So, when Tom McMillan, Minister of Environment, signed the North American Plan, in the famous picture that we see, he had full Cabinet authority to do so. So, unlike in the United States, where because of it being an agreement you didn’t end up having to go to Congress, you didn’t need Senate approval -- it wasn’t a treaty, we required to go through the Cabinet process. And so, that was the easy part in the federal level. The hard part came immediately afterwards and that was money. And the Canadian federal government was required to ante up its part. And there was no way in the world that either Canadian Wildlife Service or Environment Canada was able to pony up that kind of dollars. And so, we required to go back to Cabinet. And that was one of my very first jobs -- is to design the Cabinet Document that went to seek the finances and the funding. And one of the very strong points that we had was the huge support from the United States. And, not only support in
3
terms of commitment to the resource, but also, a commitment on the US side to provide funding to projects and work in Canada. And so, make a long story short, we succeeded in Cabinet, in getting that financed. It was not easy. It involved all kinds of Briefing Notes. And it was even … right up ‘till the end, a Briefing Note coming from our Washington Embassy on the day we went to Cabinet, and that was the same day that President Bush senior spoke to everybody and supported the Plan. And we were able to use that to get it through Cabinet. It’s a wonderful story, you know, [to] tell at another time. The second area that we had a difference in, and we had to work within, was how the relationships between Canadian Wildlife Service headquarters worked with Canadian Wildlife Service Regions. We’ve heard a lot of that interplay here, in the United States. And, there was some similarities there. Headquarters – Ottawa -- was not well regarded by many of the Regions. The Regions looked at Ottawa a little bit as the problem, the enemy. You know, just go away and let us do our thing. But, so the trust wasn’t really strong there. And so, one of my first jobs as the North American Plan Coordinator, knowing that we needed to do this in the Regions, was to try to build the trust and respect with our Regional Offices. And that required a lot of time on my part, and going out to the various Regional Offices, working together. And essentially, doing what I said I would do. And doing what the Plan required us to do. And doing the things that only Ottawa could do, like going to get the money, and that kind of a thing. And so, as time proceeded with this North American Plan, there was still the same Regional concerns as to what this meant to everybody, and is this going to take away from our projects? Who’s going to do it? How’s it going to get done? And so, by performing our functions in Ottawa in a way that respected the Regions, worked with the Regions, understood clearly that the Regional Offices were where it’s going to happen, and building a relationship, that’s the way that it worked out. And it worked very well. And one advantage we had over the way it happened in the United States is that our Regional Directors got directly involved with the Joint Ventures themselves. In fact, they Chaired the Joint Venture and got really stuck into the specifics. And they were also scientists and waterfowl people, and that really helped an awful lot.
4
John Cornely -- All right, Jim, what … and your third point again was between the Canadian Wildlife Service and the provinces?
Jim McCaug -- Yes, that’s the third area where trust and respect had to be developed. Similar to the situation in the United States, there had been a lot of rancor over the years, developed over regulations -- and hunting regulations in particular -- and the different roles. It’s always been a jurisdictional question, in Canada, as to who’s responsible for what kind of wildlife, and in what sorts of situations. And there are jokes about it. But the end result is that there was a federal role -- it was very clear in terms of migratory birds. And there was a regulation problem. And … but, that rancor existed. And when the North American Plan came along, we had to overcome that. And very similar to the situation in the United States, the Plan made a wonderful vehicle for that to happen. Because it was designed with partnerships in mind. It was designed to be done in a situation where no one was in charge. So we -- the feds -- were not in charge of this thing and telling the provinces what to do. The jurisdiction of the provinces wasn’t being impinged -- it was being used. And the jurisdiction of the feds, and the research that we were able to contribute, and the funds, and the coordination, was being used -- it wasn’t being imposed. And so, we were able to work, and develop that trust, and respect. And it really came down to the point where I, as the Director, gained the trust of the provinces -- to speak for them. And they ceased to worry about me as a ‘fed’. And they saw me more as the role, like Harvey, as the Plan representative for Canada. And so, when I would go down to the United States, to represent Canada before the NAWMP [or NAWCA?] Committee, I had their full support. And when I came back and told them what had happened, they were fully supportive. And so, it took a while to achieve that kind of a thing, but by the time I left the position, I think that it was working in a very smooth fashion. And so, those are some of the differences -- and some of the similarities -- between Canada and the US.
John Cornely -- Right. I’d like to follow up … you and I have discussed this before, and I’d like to follow up on that. What I found, you know I was about ten years into my career when I moved into my role as a Migratory Bird Coordinator -- a Regional
5
Coordinator, and this was right when … the Plan had been signed two years earlier. And it was the beginning of the Joint Ventures. And, in our country, the beginning of our private lands, or our partners for fish & wildlife. And I found out kind … you know … unexpectedly, and probably unintentionally, that those two programs, coming online about that time, changed the whole relationship of my job with the states, and probably with the provinces in some ways. Because we became much more partners than adversaries. And it sounds like something very similar like that as a result of Plan activities happened in Canada between the federal government and the provincial folks.
Jim McCaug -- Yes. That’s very much the case. And I guess that’s best exemplified through the many years the Canadian Wildlife Service and the provinces were trying to deal with waterfowl and wildlife issues and habitat. It became very painfully obvious that none of us were ever going to have the resources to buy anywhere close the amount of land, or to even protect, in any way, the amount of land that it was going to take to deal with the waterfowl population issues. It was very clear that the waterfowl populations were in trouble, and we all were writing, very clearly, the conclusion that it was a habitat problem. And it was a habitat problem, as has been said in the discussion, throughout the entire system. It wasn’t just a breeding ground problem. It was a migratory problem and a wintering problem. And that we had to look at it completely, as a system. But at the same time as looking at it as a system, we had to get the people who actually owned the land involved in the program. And so, in a way, that changed the focus away from who’s going to get it, and who’s going to get the money, and who’s going to control it, and who’s going to manage it. And so you avoided all that kind of issue and problem. And you started focusing on how can we, together, work with land owners. And how can we get people to contribute to this as partners -- as partners at all levels. And now we’re not talking about partners in the sense of the Canadian Wildlife Service as a partner, but we’re talking about ‘Joe Farmer’ as a partner in the program. And, in a way, our objective took us away from the kinds of areas that had caused clashes in the past, and moved us into a joint area, where we were looking at, how are we, together, going to be able to bring our resources, and bring our expertise, and bring our jurisdictions, together.
6
John Cornely -- Talk a little bit more about … we’ve talked about the NAWCA [should be NAWMP?] act and the fact that it specifies a certain amount of money going across borders, not just to Canada, but also to Mexico. A very unique, as you pointed out, in a panel previously, a very unique legislation. We now have another one, the Neo-Tropical Migratory Bird Act, that facilitates some of that too. And I think those are the only, you know, very unique in sending funds across the border to a partner that shares in an international resource. I understand that there, and I’m sure it was in both countries, but in Canada, that they didn’t think that -- the folks in both the federal government and the provinces, didn’t believe that would ever happen, that that was an insurmountable obstacle. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Jim McCaug -- Yeah. We’d been through many ideas, many flashes in the pan, new program and everything like this. And they all came a cropper on money. The money just didn’t come. It wasn’t there. The timing wasn’t right. And at the beginning, people thought the North American Waterfowl Management Plan was just a little bit of more grandiose flash in the pan, and that the money never would come. In Canada, at one point, it was called by one of my assistant deputy ministers as the ‘No Wampum Plan.’ The ‘No Wampum’ -- no money. And … but the Plan Committee, and those who had designed it, were well aware of the failures in the past. And they were definitely resolved to change that. And what it was, was a real politicization, when you come right down to it, of the waterfowl expertise. People in the waterfowl business who wanted to accomplish something, there turned out to be people such as Jim Patterson, and Harvey, and many other people that we worked together with in Washington and Ottawa, that not only had the care for the resource, but they also had political smarts on how to go - in our case to Cabinet, and how to get funding, and how to go into Washington, and to get these things to happen. Before that was happening, we were beg, borrowing, and stealing money from all kinds of places. And that was one of the political actions we took, was to getting these Flagship Projects and the First Step Projects up and running. Because we were then able, when it came time to go to Parliament, and time to go to Congress, able to prove and say “see, it works.” “Look, it … this isn’t just an idea. This is real. This is
7
actually happening. And just imagine, if we can make it happen by beg, borrowing, and stealing, what’s going to happen if we can actually provide the funding.” Now the funding aspect is a very important part, from the Canadian perspective, because the Plan had been sold in Canada as being a 75 / 25 ratio; that 75 percent of the money to be spent in Canada was going to come from the United States, and 25 had to be coming from Canada. And while there was great belief in that, and everybody on both sides of the border had committed and signed off on that, we Canadians jumped in on First Step Projects, and when you look at the statistics, almost 60 percent of the funding for First Step Projects came from Canadian sources, and 40 percent came from US sources. But that 40 percent that came from US sources was money flying across the border that people never, ever thought would happen. And when that actually happened, and some actual money started hitting the ground, even though it was closer to 50 / 50 or 60 / 40, that made a big difference in the Canadian situation. All of a sudden, this wasn’t a flash in the pan. This had some potential. And then we started having to think, okay, how are we going to organize ourselves, in this country, to manage this money that looks like it’s coming from the United States. And that’s one of the things that I got very much involved in. Originally there was only two Joint Ventures in Canada, the Prairie Habitat and the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture. And as it had always been identified through the process of an 80 / 20 prospect. That 80 percent of the resources were to go to the Prairies cause that’s were so much of the problem was, and 20 percent would go to Eastern Canada to deal with the issues that were there. And then when Art Martel and I, and Marv Plenert and others in the United States, began developing the Pacific Coast Joint Venture, it was very important for us in Canada, we really did need to be coast-to-coast. It became a real hard jaunt to try and persuade, particularly the Prairie Provinces, that I wanted to lower their number. I needed to get a third number, 80 / 20 had to turn into 77 / 16 / 7. And you basically needed to have it that way, seven percent for the Pacific Coast. And that meant the number for the Prairies was going down. And we had to convince them, and we succeeded, that even though that number went down, the dollars -- because of that -- were going to go way up. And we were proved right, in the long run. So, then comes the story of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. And there’s several parts of that. I talked a little bit about that yesterday. But from a Canadian
8
perspective we had to decide how to respond to this Act when it was being developed. And Jim Patterson came to Washington, and he wanted, and he was being asked, to testify before a Senate Committee. Well, he can’t do that. A Canadian federal public employee is not allowed to go under oath to a foreign power. And it is an interesting question, but we have to think of our sovereignty as a nation. And that actually flavored a lot of this. So what happened was that the Senate Committee adjourned, and then just sat and listened to Jim Patterson, and talked to him in an adjourned state. The Embassy wasn’t too pleased with that either, but that’s the way it went. And so, Canada was able to support the Act, and to talk about how important it was, and to bring the Canadian perspective to it. And so that was part of the early aspect. But then, when the money started to flow, we had to decide how are we going to deal with this. And, as you know, the United States went on a process to identify -- a competitive process, to have projects submitted, and then evaluated, and then ranked. And then the Committee was going to choose which projects were to get funding, whatever was available. Well, we come back to the sovereignty question. Canada was not in a position of allowing decisions of what was to happen to land and things in Canada [to] be taken in Washington. And so we approached it from the point of view of saying, and finding out from Washington, sort of, okay, how much money are we talking about. Give us a number. And then we took our 77 / 16 / 7, and told the Joint Ventures - plan for this much money. And we want plans done, thoroughly approved at the Joint Venture level, and then approved collectively at the Canadian level, before we send them to Washington. And then that became my job -- to take them to Washington. And in my back pocket I always had two things: one – I knew what I’d do if there was less money available than we had planned for -- and that happened at the very first meeting, and so we had to cut a project. But in other cases, we were ready with other projects in our back pocket that would … if there was more money available. And so we were always sort of first up on the agenda at the NAWCA, and our projects went and they usually went through fairly quickly and fairly easily. Very much as advertised. And it became a very good system. And then we would sit back and watch the United States process going on. And always in the middle of that discussion, somebody would say ‘why don’t we do it like the Canadians? Why are we having all these arguments?’ [General laughter.] It was quite interesting, but I recognized, and we
9
recognized, that it couldn’t be done that way in the United States. And … but it’s the way we had to do it in Canada. And I’m particularly pleased with our ability to be able to adapt ourselves to the situation, and to be able to take very concerted action in that fashion.
John Cornely -- Earlier today we talked with some or our Joint Venture Coordinators from the US and how they were hired. We talked to Harvey Nelson about, you know, his recollections of how they identified and went after Joint Venture Coordinators. And then the Joint Venture Coordinators talked about how they got their Joint Ventures up and running. And in the absence of some of those folks from Canada here, I would like you to talk a little bit about what you know about how the original two, and then three, the third, Joint Venture, how you went about looking for Coordinators. And little bit about getting the Prairie Habitat, the Eastern Habitat, and the Pacific Coast Joint Ventures up and running.
Jim McCaug -- Okay. Well, as I said at the beginning, we only had the two -- we had the Prairie Habitat and we had the Eastern Habitat Joint Venture. And actually, the Joint Ventures themselves had been sort of functional, in an informal sense, during the designing of the Plan and the approval of the Plan. And so, there’d been a lot of liaison and coordination. Jim Patterson was very good at that kind of thing. He made sure that none of this was going to be a surprise to the provinces and the other partners. And that we were all set up to do this kind of a thing. So, the Joint Venture, when it first formally met, it really wasn’t it first formal meeting. It had been working together for quite some time. And during that process, it was understood that we needed a Joint Venture Coordinator. And in the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture it just became clear that Sandy McCauley was just the person to do that. And he came out of DU -- DU Canada. And his background experience, and his personality … I mean, his people skills were exemplary -- but he also knew what he was talking about. And he was also extremely good at making things happen. And so he was appointed -- not so much hired, but just appointed -- as the first Prairie Habitat Joint Venture Coordinator. And he pulled that act together. In the east, they had a slower start. Eastern Habitat Joint Venture hadn’t been
10
really thought of. It was sort of a little add-on to the Plan. And it was necessary in Canada to involve everybody. [If] it would have been a strictly a prairie project, it would be very difficult to justify a federal presence in it. And … but, by having all the eastern provinces, that was much better. And so it was a little further behind. And so their meeting together is a little more complicated. You’ve got five or six provinces, all trying to meet together, ranging from Ontario to Newfoundland. And so many different little issues and different problems that needed to be involved with each of those. But they … come together they did. And eventually Ramón Sarasan started as the Joint Venture Coordinator, out of Québec. And that was … and he came out of the government of Québec. And he did an excellent job at the very beginning. And then he just … for health reasons, and for career reasons, just wasn’t able to continue it. And Keith Macelrony from Ducks Unlimited was appointed. And he just did it brilliantly for many years. And he exhibited all the skills that the earlier panel talked about -- the people skills, the detailed knowledge, the … in a way it’s a ‘good old boy’ stuff that, you know, he was just so easy to get along with, and just managed to cajole everybody, and so that they actually did what he wanted them to do - but thought it was their idea. And I think the definition, to some degree, of what a Coordinator is. And so that’s how our Coordinators sort of came about.
John Cornely -- I have some recollections too, that the structure kind of organizational structure of the Joint Ventures in Canada was a little different. Who did Sandy actually work for? Was he still working for DU? Who was he working for? And the same with Ramón and with Keith?
Jim McCaug -- They reported to the Chair of the Joint Venture. They worked for the Joint Venture. Now in each case - and always, the Chair of the Joint Venture is a fed. Canadian Wildlife Service. Gordon Kurr. And then, in the East, it rotated around through some of the provincial Directors that we had at different times. But that basically meant that he was paid by CWS, and he reported to a CWS person. The office was in CWS. And that was one of the federal contributions to the Joint Venture -- was the paying, and the coordinating of the paying, and the office, and so on, and travel and so
11
on, for the Coordinator. And so they lived within CWS. But -- they reported to the Director of CWS. Sometimes, not even in the Region where they lived. But they reported to them as the Chair of the Joint Venture, not as the Director of the Canadian Wildlife Service. And so, as the Chair of the Joint Venture, the Chair took direction from the Committee, and helped coordinate that Committee. And so he was truly a JV employee.
John Cornely -- Okay. Okay. And so the … they weren’t, per se, employees of the Canadian Wildlife Service, even though they were supervised, in a way ….
Jim McCaug -- Yeah. I’m not 100 percent sure …
John Cornely -- Okay.
Jim McCaug -- … of the technicalities of it,
John Cornely -- Okay. Okay.
Jim McCaug -- … but, no, to all intents and purposes, they were the Joint Venture … they were employees of the Joint Venture.
John Cornely -- Okay.
Jim McCaug -- How they actually got their checks picked up …
John Cornely -- Sure.
Jim McCaug -- … is a different matter.
John Cornely -- Right.
12
Jim McCaug -- But you know so technically they may have been federal public servants getting a yellow check …
John Cornely -- Okay.
Jim McCaug -- … like we all got, but that was … they never behaved that way and they were never expected to act that way. Their master was the JV.
John Cornely -- Okay. They were JV employees for all intents …
Jim McCaug -- Absolutely.
John Cornely -- … and purposes. Another … we’ve talked about … in the US, we’ve talked about this urgency to get projects done, on the ground, and move dirt, and all that kind of stuff. And we’re … there’s been some comments, some frustrations, about the lack of assessment of effectiveness of some of those actions. That in our haste to show that we were really doing something, that, you know, maybe we didn’t put as much effort into demonstrating that what we were doing was the right thing. And that it was effective, at least. You know, my familiarity’s somewhat with the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture. It was very different from the beginning. There was a lot of thought, it seems like, put into assessment. And it was kind of built in as part of the Joint Venture. Can you talk about that some?
Jim McCaug -- There was, from the beginning, a concern for what in management circles is called ‘results based management.’ And that is, you don’t manage by activities, and you don’t just report on activities -- how much is spent, how many trips you took, how many acres you protected, or anything like that -- but a look toward the results. The results being protected habitat, in a form. But also, are the waterfowl responding, are you ready when the rains come, and that sort of thing. A lot of this was driven out of our Research Area, both within the Canadian Wildlife Service, particularly out of our Saskatchewan Research Area, and Ducks Unlimited, who were really at that … Ducks
13
Unlimited Canada, who were really at that time getting into the research side of the operation. And, as you know, they now have this big, joint, DU Research Group. That was just getting started. And so, with that kind of background, there was focus on that. Now, I have to say, that the tracking of all of these things was a big headache for my office. And Danielle Tebo, later Danielle Bridget, was responsible for this, and it was a production number, trying to … apples and oranges … problems … what to report, what not; how to avoid double counting. It was a production number. But, she preserved, and saw it through with her team. That was a team that consisted of JV Coordinators and provincial representatives, as well as statisticians, and so on. And to the point where, we’re certainly able to report on the activities, and certainly know what the money is, and where it went, and the accountability side, as Bob put it yesterday. The results side is still, as it is here in the United States, a bit of a difficulty. It always is when you’re dealing in results based management. It’s not an easy area to deal with, because the measures of results, and the cause and effect, and the external factors. So in the area we’re talking about, the measure of the results can be done in population. But the cause and effect to say that, because we did this - this is the result, that’s a very hard line to follow. And then, not only is that cause and effect hard to follow, but there’s external factors. And the external factor that comes into play with us is the continuing loss of other wetlands that we’re not really involved in. And, as I said to someone yesterday, we can’t afford to find out that information. In order to have all that information it would be an enormous program costing just about as much as the North American Plan cost now, just to have the data and the information. So, my inclination has always been to trust the experts. To trust the people who know the resource. And, that they know what they’re doing. And, they’re not trying to spend money just for no purpose. And, as much as I’d like to have good statistics and knowledge of the results, when I’m told, by the people who know, that this is working, we’re making a difference – ‘boy, if we weren’t here, can you imagine what would be happening, if we hadn’t done what we had done’ -- that’s good enough for me.
John Cornely -- Okay. The First Step Projects in Canada served some of the same purpose as what we called Flagship Projects in the US. In your recollection, how did
14
Canada go about deciding where those projects would be? And tell us a little bit about projects like Quill Lakes and any other that come to mind.
Jim McCaug -- Okay. The provinces, and in the context of the Joint Venture, had been thinking about this question for a while. Said okay, if this is happening, where are some of our priorities? Where should we be acting? Where are we acting that we can augment? What could, you know, where are some of our priority areas that will immediately: A -- show results; and B -- address the goals of the plan. And in the prairies, it was very clear from the beginning, that we needed to have a project in Alberta and a project in Saskatchewan. And the biggest one had to be the Saskatchewan one. That’s where the attention was, and that’s where Quill Lakes came in. And the Quill Lakes Project was an enormous project. For us, in Canada, it was a very, very large effort. In Alberta it was the Buffalo Lake Moraine Project. And these two became our First Step Projects in the Prairie Habitat Joint Venture. And they had been projects that were thought through, ready to run. In a way, they were in a back pocket. But one of the reasons they were in the back pocket was because they were anticipating that, you know, if this is going to come down, we’d better be ready to go. In the eastern provinces, because you had sort of five provinces involved, five or six provinces involved, how are you going to divvy it up? And essentially, each province brought to the table a project that it had ready, at the kind of scale that the money was anticipated to be. And sometimes that depended - as to whether that was accepted as a First Step Project - on whether the province was willing to put up their share of the money and they could find other matches within the province and so on. So for example, we had no First Step Project in Newfoundland. But we did have one in Prince Edward Island, our smallest province. And so -- that was Grove Pine. Anyway, we had another big project -- New Brunswick had the Grand Lake Meadows, which was a huge and important project. Anyway, similar situation -- anticipation, already got some knowledge and action, and back pockets.
15
John Cornely -- And then the results … demonstrated results in those projects were used to further prove that this is not a flash in the pan, and this is working, and let’s keep right on, with the throttle open, and get on down the road.
Jim McCaug -- We produced very quickly, after sort of one year with these projects, a report on First Step. It had to be an interim report, because, as you know, no project actually takes a year. Especially a [indecipherable] have the results, but we had to get that out. And one of the reasons we wanted to get that out, was to report back to all of our partners, particularly the many, many US partners and states that had contributed funds to the First Step Project, through Gary Meyers’ work and other peoples work. They had put money in -- now 20,000 here, you know, 100,000 there, 60 here. Different amounts. but they deserved to hear what had happened to their money right away. And so we produced this First Step Report. And then there was another round of projects we called the Second Step Projects, that worked in very much the same way. They came a year after the first ones. And again it was Gary Meyers’ doing, and all that kind of thing. And we rushed to press with a Second Step Report, much more comprehensive, that also reported on some of the continuation of the First Steps into the Second Step Projects. And again, that was out in time for the lobbying effort, and effort in Congress, in order to have the proof on the table that Canada had its bonifides; that the 50% clause in the act was going to be honored; and that the US was getting what it had paid for in the First Step Projects; and was getting the feedback that it needed to understand that that money was good money, and that you could put more good money in that direction. And so, we spent a lot of effort making sure that that feedback got into the system.
John Cornely -- You’ve more recently been doing some consulting in other countries, and so on. And that’s a way to set up a question here, but not really … the important point, in the time we have left here I’d like you to talk about lessons learned. What you’ve learned as your involvement in the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And if someone from China, or someone came to you with a natural resource problem, what sorts of things have you learned from this Plan, this Joint Venture process, that you think,
16
you know, really work, and that you can apply to conservation and natural resources in other places
Jim McCaug – We’re asked that question a lot, in this business -- us old timers. Because it has been such a success. And my answer to that in the first place is people. It’s people that makes this work. And it’s people that will make anything along these lines, or to achieve anything. It’s not the thing. It’s not the money. It’s not the politics. It’s the people in it. And what is it about the people? What it is about the people is a common objective. Something outside themselves. This isn’t a personal objective, you know, I want a get a promotion. I want to get money. I want power. No. None of that. It’s -- I care about the resource. In this case, I care about waterfowl. I care about the land. I care about the land owners. I really want to make a difference. And that kind of shared objective, when it’s set out in front of everybody, takes their eyes off of their personal issues, and their personal problems, their jurisdictional issues, their internal service problems, whatever they are, and it focuses on that. And, as I mentioned at … in a meeting that wasn’t recorded yesterday, there’s a wonderful book called Getting To Yes. And it talks about just that. Don’t talk about what you need, and what I need, talk about what we need. And it’s the objectives that are outside. And so, I think that that’s one of the things that I learned, through the North American Plan, and that I’ve tried to apply in all of the other things that I’ve done. A corollary of that is -- one of the things is partnerships. And, the way that I always used to put partnerships was that everybody comes to the table and nobody is in charge. And that is what makes people say ‘oh, well, this can’t possibly work, if nobody’s in charge of it.’ Well, that’s wrong. It does work. And the fact that nobody’s in charge of it, nobody takes charge, is key to this North American Plan functioning. I was the Canadian Director for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in CWS, and I became the Canadian voice for the Plan in the United States, and sort of the front person. And that’s a natural role for a fed to play. But, essentially, that role was one that I was given by the partners. They said ‘yeah, you do that, that’s an appropriate role for you, you do that, you have our trust,’ and so on. If I’d have gone in there and said ‘we’re the feds, that’s what we’re going to do, that’s our job,’ and told people what to do -- never would have happened. Never would have
17
happened. So those are some of the key hallmarks. And, I’ll tell ya, it’s difficult to get that through to people until they experience it. Because people are really reluctant to give up authority. Really reluctant to give up control. And, even today, you can see, even within the Canadian Wildlife Service, you know, every once in a while something happens and somebody’s trying to exert control, even into the area of the North American Plan. And they try to exert some kind of control. And it’s a disaster. It runs against what were all standing for. But, it’s not something that you can defeat forever. And, we’ve done very well in the Plan.
John Cornely -- Yeah. One last question. It’s come up before, and it’s … it doesn’t have to do with the people. It doesn’t have to do … it does have to do somewhat with the objectives, but … strong feeling in the US that, in the 80s, if waterfowl populations hadn’t have been extremely low, that there would have more difficulty at getting a Plan signed, and getting all of this stuff implemented, and in going … that maybe something would have happened, but maybe it would have been more along the lines of the plans that we had in the past. What do you think about that? What role did kind of the crisis of the resource play in kind of setting the stage for getting some of this stuff done?
Jim McCaug -- If there’s one thing I’ve learned, in all of my career, is that timing is everything. And timing, and opportunity, knock, and you’ve got to be ready. And so, the key to being able to take advantage of opportunity is to plan for it. And I think that those who began the planning of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan in the early 80s, knew what had to happen -- not because there was a crisis, but because it was the right thing to do. But the right thing and 25 cents won’t buy coffee. It’s the kind of crisis that you need to push it over the top -- to make it happen. And when that came, they were ready. They knew what they wanted to do. Jim Patterson, and Harvey, and all the rest like that, they knew what needed to be done; they knew how they would go about doing it. And when the opportunity came, and the crisis hit, they didn’t have to say ‘how can we take advantage of this crisis?’
John Cornely -- They were ready.
18
Jim McCaug – They were ready. And, everything is timing. And if that hadn’t of been the crisis, we maybe just had to wait until there was a crisis. And I think that that’s one of the things I’ve learned in a long time. That we had the opportunity to make ecological land gifts tax deductible in Canada. And Finance Canada said ‘no, forget it, never happen.’ Well, when Finance says nothing … it’ll never happen, it takes three years to defeat them. You go out over and around and above. And we did. And, so, timing is everything.
John Cornely -- I think we’ve accomplished our objective for this interview, Jim. [Giggles] And, as always, it’s been a pleasure. And thank you very much for your time.
Jim McCaug -- Thank you. Glad to do it.
A Word From Your Transcriptionist: If a word appears [indecipherable] or with a “?” – I could not hear or I’m not sure I heard it right. Words or partial words appearing in [ ] are ones that I put in to clarify the thought. Proper names that I could not verify the spelling of show up in red text.
19